


Sex

by 80slieberher



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: FRIENDS TO LOVERS YALL KNOW HOW IT IS, M/M, and i was gonna give it a sad ending, benverly side uwu, everyone ive showed loves it and i dont, has good songs to write fics about, reddie side uwu, song fic bitches, the 1975, this sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 09:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/80slieberher/pseuds/80slieberher
Summary: Sex by The 1975 / Bill Denbrough, Stanley Uris, and the four years in between them.





	Sex

**Author's Note:**

> i know its called sex but its not explicit i needed a break from the smut but i will be back soon probably with more smut  
> follow my tumblr @stanheartsbill uwu

There was no other feeling in the world better than Stanley Uris’s tongue between his teeth, at least, not in Bill Denbrough’s world. The only feelings that compared were the flutterings in his chest that came watching Stan kick off his pristine white high tops in the back of Bill’s van, or the twitch in his jeans when Stan snaked his hands under Bill’s shirt to toss it carelessly behind them.

He held Stan close like he hadn’t seen him in years, when in reality they’d done this yesterday and the other and a couple times the week before. Stan’s crew socks were pulled up neatly, and if Bill’s hands travelled to his calves he could feel them, if Stan would let him.

“Use your hands,” Stan mumbled against his lips, taking Bill’s wrists in his hands, moving them from their cautious grip on his waist to his ass. “I’ve got spare time.”

Bill might’ve swallowed if he had the capacity to focus on anything but the boy straddling his lap. He was pressed uncomfortably against the back of the front center console; he made a habit of folding his back seats into the floor whenever he knew Stan would be around; it gave them more room.

“We used to have so much in common, you know,” Bill murmured back, muffled speech - due to Stan’s lips - reminding him of his old stutter. The stutter he had when he was thirteen, the stutter he had when he and Stan were friends. Were they friends now? Bill didn’t know. They hadn’t been friends in a long time.

 

Stan was widely considered a traitor among the Losers’ Club, there was no denying it. In eighth grade, Greta Keene had offered him a spot at her lunch table - God knows why, and Bill was destined to never. Bill’s questioning of fate aside, Stan took it, and at thirteen, there was no greater treachery.

Beverly was heartbroken to say the least, and Bill, convinced he was in love with her at the time, almost had half a mind to confront Stan.

But he didn’t, because you didn't just _fight_ Stan. No one fought Stan. That was the way the world worked, and though Bill spent countless nights trying to envision how it would play out if it ever did happen, it never did. Stan was self-preserving, calm, smart, graceful, and (for the most part) collected. Bill was raw, uncouth, rough around the edges, and impulsive. He didn’t want to hurt Stan.

Stan sat with Greta every day for the following week. He tried to sit with the Losers once in a while, but Bill was sure no one knew what to say.

Bill remembered the last day he sat with them. It was quiet, as it always was whenever Stan sat there. On the other days, it was loud, full of Richie whooping and Mike snickering out dirty jokes just to see Ben’s face turn pink, Beverly and Eddie snorting at their friends. There was never any of that when Stan sat there, everyone was too uncomfortable, and maybe afraid he would only go home and call Greta or one of her _goons_ to gossip about them.

So they sat and stared down at their lunches. Stan was quiet as well for the first fifteen minutes, and Bill wondered if he noticed that Bill’s eyes flickered up to him in curiosity every now and then. Stan had licked his lips like he was about to say something, but then pursed them, and got up with his lunch tray. Bill felt his own lips fall open like he was going to speak, but no words had the chance to come out before Stan was walking away, taking his company back to Greta.

God, Bill wished he’d said something.

They stopped inviting him places, because all of their plans were usually made at lunch and, well… He was never there to discuss. Bill noticed that summer that he must have stopped bird watching at the quarry, because Bill never caught him there after that. That was Loser territory.

Instead, he caught Stan in pink polo shirts on Wednesdays outside the Aladdin with Greta and her gang when he would ride his bike across town to see Mike. Every time, Bill wanted to stop; he wanted to stop and at least ask Stan _why_. Why was he surrounded by the girls he swore months earlier that he hated? Why was he hanging around people that weren’t his friends? Why did he choose Greta Keene over people that really cared about him?

But instead, every time, Bill’s feet kept pedaling, and he didn’t say anything.

He saw Stan through high school, of course, Derry was too small not to. He ditched his yarmulke in ninth grade, and he was out by tenth - but no one made him out to be a fag or wrote disgusting things on his locker like they did Eddie that same year. Stan’s homosexuality was hip, cool, preppy, and popular, because he had Greta’s protection. Her _GBF_ , as she’d proudly announce him: Gay Best Friend.

To Bill, he seemed more like her pet, but he didn’t think he’d ever tell anyone that even if he had the chance.

The Losers avoided Stan like the fucking plague that year, but Bill supposed that was better than bitterly shit-talking him at all of their hangouts like they did the year before. Bill wondered if Stan had ever caught wind of Beverly whispering _Traitor_ when she passed him in the hall, or if he ever realized that Richie bumped his shoulder harshly on purpose whenever he did. Maybe Stan shouldn’t have laughed the first time Greta called Richie ‘brace-face’ that year, or any of the other times.

Maybe Bill should have said something.

Last year, though, - junior year - things had calmed down. The Losers didn’t talk about Stan, busied with larger things on their minds.

Mike had gotten early acceptance into some state college that Bill couldn’t recall off the top of his head, and he was over the moon. His parents were so proud that they took all six of them out to dinner to celebrate - Mike citing he couldn’t have done it without the help of his five friends. Bill was so much more than proud of Mike, but felt the emptiness of the chair next to him that night like there was a ghost sitting there that only he knew about, making his hairs stand on end.

He didn’t say anything.

Beverly was making breakthroughs in her textiles class, and was even appointed to the top costume designer for the school play. Coincidentally, the production was the same as the one Bill had kissed Beverly in back in third grade - Rapunzel. Richie cracked too many jokes, but Bill’s face didn’t go as red as it used to. Ben’s did, instead.

Ben didn’t spend as much time in the library as he used to, and he didn’t need to write Beverly any more poems. He’d finally gotten the balls to ask her out that year, and _fuck_ , was Bill happy for them. Romance aside for now, Ben had actually been working on cars, which was odd, because Bill never pegged him as the type, but Ben said he liked learning how the parts fit together, and that was too _Ben_ for it to be false. He’d fixed Bill’s van up a couple times, the old girl she was, and Bill had nothing to be but grateful.

Richie planned all year how to ask Eddie to prom. Bill assured him probably eight million times that all of his ideas would be great, but he was insistent on finding the _perfect_ one. It was cute - annoying, but cute, and that was Richie Tozier for you. Everything else seemed to come easily to Richie - he’d gotten a 1590 on his SAT and Bill was sure he was going to be the funniest valedictorian that Derry High had ever seen. Bill was proud of him.

Eddie stayed short, but Bill liked him like that. Being 6’3, sometimes he and Richie propped their arms up on his head just to hear him snap at them. Stereotypes were good for laughs and all, but Eddie actually turned out to be the best driver in their group, and helped Ben on the cars he worked on sometimes. He drove everyone everywhere, and barely let Richie behind the wheel. Bill always felt safe with Eddie at the wheel. He’d taken everything that happened to him after coming out in stride, and it might’ve helped that Richie came out as bi right after in hopes to soften his blow. Bill wished at the time that they’d get together already, but he let Richie live out his prom dreams.

And Bill? Bill felt like he never changed. Sure, he was as busy with school and standardized testing as the rest of them, and he bought a really cool typewriter that he’d had to save for months for and realized that he wanted to write when he finally got his ass out of Derry, but otherwise, he stayed the same. His parents got him a car for his seventeenth birthday, so that was something: his silver van, Silver two-point-oh. He drove Georgie home from school every day. He’d changed his wardrobe a little bit, too: lots of black skinny jeans and black converse, flannels always the same. He got his eyebrow pierced, Bev did it for him. He supposed often that the more things changed, the more they seemed to stay the same.

He wondered a lot what Stan was doing, but never told the others that. Sometimes he’d catch one of them staring off into the empty spot at the quarry and wonder if they were thinking the same thing he always was.

So, yeah, things had calmed down a lot, there was never time to talk bad about Stan or for them to pay any mind to him at all. Bill watched him take books from his locker, sometimes, with his pastel polos and his _oh-so-Stanley-casual_ khakis. Bill watched him in class, writing his notes down neatly like he always did in his curly script that matched his hair. Bill watched him in the hallways, and at lunch, and at parties when they ended up at the same ones.

He’d caught Stan watching him once.

It was at one of those parties, and Bill didn’t have a lot to say about it. He was minding his own business when Greta decided to have way too much to drink and come onto him. He didn’t want trouble, she was drunk, Bill was a good guy, and Greta had a boyfriend, anyway, so he tried to push her off gently. It didn’t go well. He was pulled down into her face, her eyes squeezed closed while she forced a disgusting, vodka-tasting kiss on his lips, trying grossly to lick into his mouth. Bill’s eyes, however, were wide open, as if asking for _Help! Help!_ while everyone except one laughed around him.

That one was the only person he couldn’t take his eyes off of - it was Stan, of course it was Stan. He watched Bill solemnly, almost without emotion, wide eyes and slight frown looking better on him than ever in that lighting.

And then? He walked away. Like the bastard Bill swore only in his mind from that day that Stan was, he walked away again.

Bill didn’t say anything, his mouth busy, but he didn’t regret it too much that time. He didn’t know what he would have said if he did.

 

“We’ve still got one thing in common,” Stan chuckled, trying to pull Bill closer by the hair on the back of his head. He pulled back briefly to finish. “My tongue.” He laughed, and Bill tried to.

Stan seemed to take it.

 

Minutes away from Stan’s boyfriend’s house, Bill stopped the car by the sidewalk at Stan’s request. There was no one else on the residential road.

“I can walk from here,” He told Bill, and Bill nodded. He would’ve stopped here anyway, they’d been doing this for a couple weeks now, and he was getting into habit.

“Why’d you have extra time today?” Bill asked, curious why Stan had extended their time together.

“He’s got football practice now,” Stan answered, not looking at Bill. That was fine. Bill was sure Stan barely ever actually saw him, anyway. “I told him I won’t touch him if he’s all sweaty and gross.”

“Sex makes you all sweaty and gross anyway, though.” Bill countered, trying to make light of the conversation, injecting humor into his voice.

“Not the way I do it,” Stan shook his head and laughed almost humorlessly, looking at his hands in his lap.

“Oh-ho, remind me to take you up on that sometime,” Bill said and forced another laugh.

“I’ll be sure to,” Stan gave a tight lipped smile, and Bill wondered why all they could seem to talk about was sex. “I’ll see you later, Bill.” Stan gave a small wave as he climbed out of the car.

“Yeah, I’ll see you, Stuh-Stanley.”

 _Fucking stutter_.

Stan gave him an odd look, one that Bill might have recognized if he’d spent the last four years around Stan instead of merely catching glances of him.

“Just call me Stan.”

“‘Kay,” Bill agreed, knitting his eyebrows up in slight confusion, and then giving Stan a smile that couldn’t have been faker if he tried. “‘Later, Stan.”

Stan gave him a last wave and then began walking off, Bill watching him just to make sure he got in safely, though he couldn’t see Stan’s boyfriend’s house from where he was.

When Stan’s figure became small with the distance between them, Bill began turning around, still wondering why Stan had said that. Everyone called him Stanley now, that was the name Greta chose he’d go by - Stanny, if she was feeling playful. Bill had heard it enough times.

The only nickname he ever liked was Stan, and the ones that Richie and Richie alone called him.

After a moment, Bill decided not to read into it too much or at all. It was probably nothing, and Bill knew it wouldn’t matter if it was something. He didn’t know if he cared. Either way, Stan had a boyfriend, anyway.

 

A week later and things escalated from Bill’s car to Bill’s room, not that Bill was complaining. He had the boy he’d missed for years right where he wanted him, and there was no taking Stan from him here. Of course, Stan could walk away any time he wanted to, but he was so eager kissing over Bill’s face that Bill doubted he would.

Bill kissed from Stan’s lips to his ear and then down his neck, and didn’t suck a hickey into the skin no matter how much he wanted to. In fact, if his eyes fluttered open, he would see that he was kissing over bruises left by other lips - but he already knew that, and on top of that, he couldn’t stand the thought, so he didn’t. He simply listened to the melodious hums that tickled his mouth emanating from Stan’s throat.

His hands learned to roam Stan’s body more freely now, and he was much more comfortable leaned up against his headboard than his center console. He slipped his hands under Stan’s shirt and rubbed them up and down his sides, feeling Stan lean further into him and his touch. Bill was on cloud-fucking-nine, and couldn’t remember a time he didn’t feel like this. That’s what Stan did to him: he made him all fucking stupid and forgetful and unable to focus on anything else.

Bill loved it.

“Does your boyfriend touch you, Stan?” Bill asked seductively, wrapped up in the pure bliss of it all, trying to memorize the softness of Stan’s skin under his own calloused fingertips.

“Yes,” Stan whispered, and Bill let his eyes flicker to Stan’s face as his hands crept higher and higher and Stan lifted his arms, allowing Bill to rid him of his shirt. Bill’s own had been long gone. Stan’s expression looked almost like he was in pain, like he would wince away from Bill any second. It inspired Bill to slow down a little bit, be more gentle, make Stan feel as comfortable as possible.

“Does your boyfriend touch you like I touch you?” He felt the gruffness of his own voice, it tumbled in his throat as he mumbled the words against Stan’s stomach. His lips just barely touched it as he spoke, and immediately after, he was planting kisses all over the body in front of him.

“No.” Bill watched Stan’s face soften, and he twirled fingers in Bill’s hair as if in attempt to pull his embrace closer.

Bill pulled him down into his lips farther, the small canvas of Stan’s body limitless to the paint of his lips forsake that one obstacle. Despite his bitterness over the fact, he smiled slightly, knowing Stan couldn’t see it, resting his forehead and nose against the warm, smooth expanse of skin in front of him.

“Do you want me, Stan?” He murmured, feeling his own breath warm against the skin of his face as it was trapped between them before filtering away.

Stan was quiet, and Bill felt him swallow.

“I don’t know,” Stan replied softly, almost whispering again. Bill risked a glance up to find Stan looking at nothing in particular, his face straight ahead, eyes closed. His hands squeezed in Bill’s hair, almost begging him to go on.

“Do you say no?” Bill questioned again, looking up at Stan now, not expecting Stan’s eyes to pop open and look down at him the way they did.

“No, I- I don’t know,” He stuttered, and then he was scrambling off of Bill. Bill let him go freely, not saying anything. He watched Stan collect his shirt and put it back on, tucking it back on and doing his best to fix his hair.

Bill frowned. “Stan,” His eyebrows furrowed in frustration. “You know I could-,” He began, but Stan cut him off brashly.

“Take me home, Bill,” He demanded, apparently so unwilling to hear it.

Bill took him home, trying not to seem upset. He wasn’t mad that Stan wouldn’t have sex with him, he couldn’t care less about the sex. _I could easily fill his shoes_ , Bill thought - No, Bill knew. _I could take care of you._

 

In the following two weeks that Stan spent pretending he was too busy trying to help get ready for homecoming to spend time with Bill and Bill spent pretending that he believed Stan’s bullshit lies, Bill thought a lot. He thought much more than he’d previously allotted, which was never good unless he was putting it on paper and changing people’s names.

Which he was also doing, so maybe that allowed for some elbow room.

Being at the mercy of Stan’s attention was difficult. Bill hadn’t thought about how much he was relying on it until it’d been ripped away from him a third time, and he wondered when he became a checker piece to the boy - something to be picked up as needed, or as wanted, or as situation permitted, and none of those were applicable under the circumstances.

He did see that Stan was busy, but he also knew that after homecoming committee that Stan sat alone in his room or went out and faked happiness with his perfectly-plastic-personality friends or let his boyfriend use and exhaust his body in ways Bill would never dream of, and that he didn’t want to be doing any of those things. Bill wondered why he stayed, and wondered if he’d made it clear that even if the Losers didn’t take him back that Bill would, at least, with arms so wide open he could engulf the fucking world in them, but only wanted Stan.

Bill knew the Losers would take him back, too, though - what were they if not Lucky Seven?

Whatever they’d been for nearly four years, he supposed.

 

Bill wondered often about where he’d be in his mind if he hadn’t offered Stan a ride home only a month and a half ago. He was wandering around the school’s parking lot, looking rather lost, and Bill watched him as he himself walked to his car. He’d begun driving out slowly, busy observing Stan deflate and begin to walk toward the sidewalk.

Bill knew Stan’s house was a good forty-five minute walk away, Bill’s own a good fifty, and it was about to start raining. In the moment, Bill had just done it, maybe convincing himself he was just being a good person - but Bill knew his real reasons. After so long, an opportunity to get Stan alone had finally presented itself, and Bill was going to snatch it up if it killed him. The cogs in his brain had turned out so many questions over the time that he didn’t know what to say after rolling down his window and asking, “Need a ride?” and Stan had nodded and gotten in, so he didn’t say anything for a couple minutes. He couldn’t remember a time he’d been so alone with and close to Stan.

“How was your summer?” He’d found himself asking.

“It was good,” Stan answered, and his voice didn’t sound any different than it did last year when he’d handed pins out to everyone in aid of Greta’s campaign for senior class president and cheered _Don’t be mean, vote for Keene!_ (Which, given Greta’s social standing, was far too ironic to not be purposeful, but of course, it wasn’t.) “How was yours?”

“Fine,” Bill nodded, and then they were quiet for the rest of the ride. Bill put in his Tears for Fears mixtape that Richie’d made just for him so that at least some good music would fill the silence.

“Bill?” Stan had asked as Bill stopped the car in his driveway, waiting for Stan to get out and go into his big house and call up Greta on the bright red telephone in his room and tell her that _Bill Denbrough_ had driven him home from school that day and played something that wasn’t _Madonna_ and how he’d had to resist from plugging his ears with his fingers.

“Hmm?” Bill answered, trying not to look like he was watching Stan slowly climb out of his car.

Stan looked conflicted for a moment, and opened his mouth twice before actually speaking. “Uh, my boyfriend, his job is scheduling him after school now, and Greta said she’d drive me home, but… Well, do you think you could drive me? Like, home from school? I’ll pay you, seriously, I just need a ride and you’re a pretty reliable guy and-,”

“Sure,” Bill gave a small smile and nodded, cutting off Stan’s rambling as Stan closed the door and peered in the open window. “Your house is on the way to mine, anyway, you don’t need to pay me. We still live in the same neighborhood we always have.” He laughed awkwardly, wondering if Stan had forgotten that.

“No, I know, I just- I didn't want you to have to go out of your way without it being worthwhile… Thank you.” His eyebrows knitted and then relaxed as he explained and thanked Bill. Bill wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t out of his way, but in a way, it was. What would the Losers think if they saw Bill and Stan together? What would the rest of _Derry_ think if they saw Bill and Stan together?

That’s why they only made out in the parking lot behind the old Salvation Army warehouse building, so no one would see them. Bill was the only teenager in Derry that drove a silver minivan with a sticker slapped on the back that read _If you’re going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair!_ courtesy of Richie once again.

Bill barely remembered how that had started, despite being only a few weeks earlier.

He knew Stan was particularly chatty that day, as they’d grown increasingly comfortable - maybe not friendship level comfortable, because there were hundreds of unanswered questions on the tip of Bill’s tongue and hanging in the air that he never verbalized, but comfortable enough for Stan to tell Bill, “I have to pick something up, would you mind taking me by the post office?”

Bill didn’t think much of it until he was parking by the Salvation Army building, which he barely ever noticed.

It wasn’t a lie, Stan did have to pick a package up for his mother, but Bill couldn’t help but wonder why she couldn’t have it delivered to their house.

He was helping Stan put it in the trunk, because Bill had the back seats up that day, of course, it was a Monday and Eddie had been driving the Losers Club around in Silver that weekend, when they realized it wasn’t going to fit well enough. Bill had Georgie’s bike back there, which he forgot about. He was supposed to be getting the brakes on it fixed on Sunday night, but he spent the majority at Bev’s watching movies.

“Let’s put it in the backseat, instead,” He’d suggested, and Stan nodded compliantly, following Bill to the side door and pushing the package onto the seat after he’d opened it.

Things were a little blurry from there for Bill, but Stan was pushing up into his mouth and arms were closing around his neck, and then Bill was trying to get Stan into the backseat, and then they were trying desperately to make their lips meet comfortably in the tight space.

It proved impossible, so they settled for simply just making their lips meet instead, and Bill’s ego swam laps in Stan’s chanted pleas of _Touch me, touch me_.

Bill understood, then, why he could never keep his eyes off Stan Uris, and wondered how anyone else managed to.

 

Bill liked Stan. Hell, maybe Bill even loved Stan. That much he wasn’t sure, but he knew several things: Stan wasn’t happy, Stan had a boyfriend that wasn’t Bill, and that Bill could make Stan happy - and once Bill Denbrough put his mind to something, it took forces stronger than the Devil to stop him.

In other words, forces stronger than Greta Keene.

 

One thing that Stan failed to include when telling Bill _No, thank you, I have committed for the next couple weeks. Greta’s taking me home_ , was that Greta planned on getting on one knee in front of the entire cafeteria, held up by two other girls on the cheer squad and Stan, and ask _him_ to homecoming.

 _Don’t you have a boyfriend?_ He wanted to yell, not sure if at her or if at Stan more. _Why me? Why me? Don’t you have a boyfriend?_

He looked back at his friends, and when he looked back to Greta, her superficial smile was faltering and making her look more like a broken toy than Miss America.

He looked to Stan, and was sure he caught a scowl set in Greta’s face from the corner of his eye. Stan’s eyes were trained away from him, a wide smile plastered on his face as he looked up to Greta.

“Billy?” She questioned through her teeth, and it took all of Bill’s self control to go along with the game. “I said-,”

“I heard you,” Bill waved, not meanly, but not willing to hear her repeat her cheer. He looked at Stan one more time, heart pounding angrily in his chest before matching Greta’s forced smile. “Sure, I’d love to, Greta.”

The Losers mouths hung open, but Bill had no explanation to offer them, so he said nothing as he rejoined them.

“Dude,” Richie was the first to laugh incredulously, “Are you seriously pulling a Stan on us?”

“Yeah, what the fuck, Bill?” Beverly was obviously upset, and Bill glanced up to look at hers and Ben’s hands entwined on the table. “I know the whole Stan thing was eighth grade, but- you’re really gonna open that wound back up? On _homecoming?_ ”

“You guys shouldn’t talk about Stan like that,” Bill mumbled, licking his lips and looking back down at his lunch. He wasn’t feeling hungry.

“Bill,” Eddie laughed bitterly, “You can’t be serious. You know people told me I _copied_ him when I came out? You know he listened to people call me a fag and ask how Richie’s dick felt in my ass and did _nothing?_ ”

“He literally calls me braceface, Bill, - and _still_ thinks it’s funny,” Richie deadpanned. “He’s one of Greta’s goons now, I’ll talk about him however the fuck I want to talk about him, fucking kike-,”

“Richie!” Bill’s head whipped up, “Jesus fuck, you don’t have to pull out the slurs, that makes you just as fucking bad!” He looked to Mike for support. Mike always backed him up.

Mike sighed from across the round table. “No slurs,” He looked to Richie and then back to Bill. “Look, Bill,” He sighed again, flipping over a piece of lettuce in his salad container. “Stan’s a different person now, I don’t understand why- why you think he isn’t. He might not make ‘Go back to Africa’ jokes at me, but he laughs when Greta does, and that’s enough of his case for me. I think I should be allowed to think negatively of him and voice that, the same goes for everyone else. We don’t know him anymore.”

Bill huffed and looked to Ben instead.

“Don’t look at me,” Ben shook his head, and Bill watched his hand hold a little tighter to Beverly’s. “The minute Greta hopped on the _fatso_ joke train, so did he. It doesn’t feel great to have someone you used to love like a brother treat you like- like I don’t even know.” He sighed.

“The only reason he hasn’t hurt you is because Greta likes you,” Beverly spoke again, not making eye contact with Bill meanwhile he tried to tell her how wrong she was with just his expression. “So fine, whatever, go to homecoming with Greta and then be her boyfriend like she’s been trying to get you to be for the past four years and turn on us just like Stan did!” She stabbed her fork hard down into her noodles, and it made a loud _CLANK!_ noise. “Go be another Stan, you really can’t be anything worse!”

“Well, damn, guys!” Bill exclaimed, standing, “If I didn’t know any fucking better, I’d guess you were never friends with him at all!”

With that, he huffed again, and stormed away.

He didn’t pick up any of the thirty-something calls he got that night, though he sort of wanted to, just in case one was Stan.

 

So Bill went to his senior year homecoming with Greta Keene, and gave her a nice corsage that complimented Stan’s eyes more than it did hers, and held her cold hand in the car on the way to the school, and opened heavy doors for her, and hated every plastic minute of it.

His friends stood across the gymnasium from him, and he watched them whisper whenever he danced emotionlessly with Greta. What a night it was turning out to be.

The worst part was probably Stan, though, if Bill was honest. He was left alone by everyone but his boyfriend, who couldn’t seem to keep his mouth off of Stan all night. Bill flashed back to a little over two months ago and compared the same deflated Stan about to trek forty five minutes home in the rain to the one standing at the edge of the dance floor, completely lackluster while his boyfriend left dark marks on his neck and he did nothing to even attempt to refute. At least someone was having just as much of a suck-ass time as Bill was.

Greta clearing her throat brought Bill back to her, tearing his eyes from Stan.

“Billy, sweetheart, it’s rude to stare,” She batted her eyes at him, and the sugary sweetness in her tone practically gave Bill a stomachache. “There’s nothing to see over there.”

“Stan doesn’t look like he’s having a lot of fun,” Bill said, glancing back over him, watching him limply accept his boyfriend’s advances, like that title gave anyone free reign over his body.

Greta glanced back at him briefly, and Bill knew that she was probably shooting daggers at him with her eyes, but he wasn’t paying attention. She turned back to him. “No, he’s having fun,” She smiled, and Bill was disgusted with her lack of concern. “He loves Chris, I set them up, just like Stanny set us up.”

If Bill’s rage didn’t bubble up inside him in under three seconds, maybe he would’ve appreciated an ironic record scratch from the DJ to match the one in his brain.

“He _what?_ ” Bill spat, attention suddenly focused on Greta, who looked genuinely confused, and put her hand on his arm.

“He set us up, he’s a great matchmaker,” She smiled, “And so am I! That’s why we make such a good team!” Bill couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and was walking away from her before she could talk anymore.

He headed straight for Stan.

“Come with me,” He grabbed Stan’s arm harshly, Greta trying to keep up with his long strides on her heels. Stan’s boyfriend looked up, and Bill barely paid any attention to him, gray eyes busy pouring heavily into Stan’s.

“Dude, get your hands off of my boyfriend,” He tried to swat Bill away, but he wasn’t fast enough, as Bill was already ushering Stan out of his arms and then out of the side door.

Stan shook his head when they finally got outside. “What- Bill- What are you doing?” He stammered, blinking rapidly as Bill tugged his keys out of his pocket, not holding Stan’s arm anymore. He listened to Stan walk faster in attempt to keep up.

“Get in the fucking car,” He stopped and pointed to Silver, parked a few feet away. “We need to talk.”

Stan obliged without protest, so Bill gauged that this was going well enough already.

 

The ride to the quarry was their most silent yet. Bill wanted to take Stan as far from Derry as he could get, but that felt impossible, so he took him to the outskirts instead.

He drove onto the soft grass, having done it a million times, and parked. The light from the car’s ceiling came on between them, and Bill looked at Stan, who was already looking at him.

They were quiet.

“So, what now?” Stan asked, voice soft, intimidated, and Bill remembered the universal rule about arguing with Stan and its innate impossibility.

“I don’t know,” Bill broke eye contact, unable to even look at Stan, and watched a bat circle in the sky above the water.

“We might as well just fuck.” Bill watched Stan shrug at his own suggestion from the passenger side, and looked at him with offended incredulousness.

“What? No. No, Stan, we’re not gonna fuck, we shouldn’t fuck- what the fuck?” Bill shook his head. “Who do you even think I am?”

“I don’t know.” Stan shrugged again, looking away as Bill looked back at him in exasperation.

“I just- Ugh!” Bill groaned loudly, putting his face in his hands. “Why did you fucking do it? Why did you sit with Greta-fucking-Keene?” He looked at Stan again, waiting for the answer to a question he’d been waiting this long to ask, unable to bare the weight any longer.

Stan laughed breathily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bill knew he was lying, but explained anyway. “In eighth grade. Why did you sit with Greta when she invited you to?” He spoke slowly, admittedly a little patronizingly, like Stan was a child - like Stan was still the same eighth grader ditching his friends for the likes of Greta Keene. “You fucked us up. And now I find out- I find out this whole thing,” He gestured between himself and the boy, “This was so I would go to homecoming with Greta? That’s so fucked up, that’s so _absolutely_ fucked up-,”

“Why does it matter now?” Stan was much quicker to get on the defensive than Bill had anticipated he would be. “That was _four years ago_ , let it _go._ You’re different now, the- your friends are different now. You- You’ve got your eyebrow pierced, you don’t know me anymore.”

Bill swore he felt his heart breaking in his chest, and all he wanted to do was prove to Stan just how wrong he was.

“You still wear your high tops.” Was all he managed to croak.

“You wear skinny jeans instead of those ugly jorts.” Stan almost laughed, but tears were building furiously in Bill’s eyes.

“You got a bunch of fake friends,” He began, trying to hold back the tears threatening to spill. “If all I wanted from you was sex, if I thought I didn’t fucking know you anymore, I would’ve taken all of them out any day.” His voice was thick, and he swore he saw tears in Stan’s eyes, but he could barely see out of the blurriness of his own. “You hang out with them and they fill your head with more hot air than hairspray they put in their back combs.” He said bitterly, and finally let tears fall. He saw through the water works that Stan opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn’t finished saying everything he wished he had in the past four years. “And I don’t even know why I’m crying over you right now, or why I’m trying to tell you that I love you, because you’ve got a boyfriend, anyway.” He sniffled and wiped his cheeks, seeing finally the tears glinting off of Stan’s. “Why do you stay?” He asked brokenly, looking at Stan for any answer at all.

Stan’s mouth didn’t move but for his bottom lip to quiver.

“You’re not happy, I can see it in your eyes and I can feel it when you’re around them, just _leave_ , Stan,” He grabbed recklessly for Stan’s hands, thanking God he didn’t pull away. “Come back to me, I’ve been waiting for so long.”

Stan broke into sobs then, still hanging on tight to Bill’s hands as he brought them to his eyes to cry into them.

“No, Bill,” He sobbed, shaking his head profusely, and Bill broke further. He thought for a moment that he’d gotten through, that Stan would say yes and throw himself into Bill’s arms and they would live happily ever after.

Bill still tried to wipe his tears, but they kept on falling.

“I’m happy,” He blubbered, and pulled his hands away from his blotchy red face to force a smile. “See?” His voice broke in the space between them and Bill’s heart felt like it might lurch out of his chest. “I’m happy, I don’t need the Losers, because-,” He shook his head with his plastic smile, sniffling, “Because Eddie’s a fag, and Richie has braces, and Ben is fat, and Beverly’s a slut, and Mike is black, and my parents are stupid kikes and so was I before Greta got me,” He wailed, taking in a deep, shaky breath, gripping Bill’s hands tighter and tighter. He didn’t mind, tears dripping from his cheeks onto the center console he wished he was again leaned against instead of this.

“S-so it’s true,” Bill whispered, thinking back to what Beverly said, “You only don’t torment me because Greta likes me, not because yuh-huh-you do.”

“No,” Stan closed his eyes tight, squeezing out tears, then relaxing them but keeping them shut. He shook his head. “I waited everyday for you to talk to me at lunch, I waited everyday for years for you to say something to me again,” Bill could hear the thickness building in his voice again. “The day you offered me a ride it was raining but it felt like a crack of fucking sunshine shot through my own personal sky. It felt like I hadn’t heard your voice in _years_ , Bill. My boyfriend didn’t get a job after school,” Stan shook his head again softly, and Bill wished he would open his eyes and look at him. “I didn’t need rides after school, my dad just got busy at the temple and couldn’t make it to pick me up in time that day. I- I lied so I could see you, and talk to you, even if it was just the fifteen minutes home and half of it was filled with Tears for Fears. I’m so-,”

“Don’t say sorry,” Bill rushed, cutting him off, and Stan finally opened his eyes. “Sorry implies that you regret it,” He breathed slowly, trying to calm himself down. “And I don’t want you to regret that.”

“I shouldn’t have lied,” Stan whispered, looking at his lap, “I should’ve just told you. I should’ve told you four years ago instead of waiting for you to say something to me.”

“I should’ve said something,” Bill whispered back, Stan’s grip on his hands softening, Bill rubbing his thumbs into the backs of Stan’s.

They stayed like that for a moment, calming their breathing, letting the redness drain from each of their faces, before Stan broke the silence.

“All this work on homecoming and it still sucked,” He laughed bittersweetly. “I didn’t even get to dance, just got to watch Greta lead between you two and get covered in hickies and saliva.”

Bill laughed at that. “I had to watch you look like a zombie under your boyfriend, and trust me, I was really feeling for you out there.”

Stan laughed, too, and they lapsed into quiet again as Bill disconnected their palms, rooting around in the center console for something he hadn’t seen in a little while.

It was at the very back of his long collection of mixtapes, some made by himself, some helped with by Georgie, some given to him as gifts by his friends. This one was a gift, too, but not one that had been given to him.

“I made this for you, like, four or five years ago,” Bill chuckled, pulling it out. “I was too much of a pussy to give it to you, because it had love songs on it, and I didn’t know how to sort out my feelings back then.” He listened to the clicking the tape made as he put it in the slot and it molded itself to the player. “Sometimes I drive down the highway and I play it and think about you, as stalker-ish as that sounds.” He laughed at himself again, and looked up to find Stan smiling softly.

“Very stalker-ish,” He muttered, sniffling again as the first song began humming through Bill’s speakers. “Forever Young, Alphaville,” He named with an approving nod, “Classy, Denbrough.”

“I try,” Bill returned his small smile, holding out his hand again. “Will you go to homecoming with me, Stan Uris?”

Stan giggled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

 

Bill knew they were in for it when they got back to school eventually, but for now, he held Stan gently in his arms and swayed with him under the star-littered October sky, replaying tracks and putting in several different tapes before they grew tired of dancing.

They’d left the speakers going as they sat on the roof of Bill’s van, _Hey Jude_ playing softly below them. Bill leaned back on his hands and looked out onto the water, Stan resting his head on his shoulder.

“I love you, too,” Stan spoke out of the blue, Bill rubbing his cheek against the top of his head.

“Cool,” He nodded, and Stan laughed, making him laugh, too.

“What are we gonna do about everyone at school?” Stan asked next, the song changing. Bill recognized _Time After Time_ with the first few notes. “Everyone’s gonna hate me.”

“If only there was a club for that,” Bill sighed sarcastically, following it with a chuckle.

“They’re gonna hate me more than anyone and you know it,” Bill could hear Stan’s frown.

“Nah,” He shook his head, turning it to press a second long kiss to Stan’s temple, watching the boy’s eyes flutter closed like he’d always dreamed they would. “They miss you, too, I catch them all staring at a seventh empty spot whenever we go somewhere all the time.” He sniffed. “You just did shitty things to them and they’re gonna want apologies.”

“God, I plan on it. I miss them, too, life has kind of actually sucked without Richie’s jokes. I feel like I haven’t genuinely laughed in ages.”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve only gotten worse.” Bill hummed in amusement, and they were silent again, Bill focused on trying to memorize the way Stan’s body felt so close to his, though now he has plenty of time to.

“I love you,” He said again after a while. He expected Stan to simply say it back, but he was learning - and fast - that maybe Stan was a _little_ different from the person he’d thought Stan was after all.

Instead, Stan haphazardly crawled onto Bill’s lap, Bill careful to hold him tight with one arm while keeping a steady grip on the car’s hood with another so neither of them fell.

He pressed a long, innocent kiss to Bill’s lips, both of their eyes closing tight with passion, and then lingering in Bill’s space after he pulled away.

“I love you,” Stan whispered back at last, lips tracing Bill’s, and then it was Bill’s turn to push up into Stan’s space.

There was no other feeling in the world better than Stanley Uris’s tongue between his teeth, at least until Bill Denbrough realized that the only one was loving him.


End file.
